Viewable Ad Net Expands Into Platform, Offers Publishing Industry Its Own 'VaaS' Model


Duration Media, which founded a marketplace based on trading only the most viewable inventory offered by top-tier premium publishers, is now launching a platform for publishers that want to manage it themselves.

The platform, which Duration Media Founder and CEO Andy Batkin dubs a VaaS -- or a "Viewability as a Service" -- model, initially is being offered to larger publishers, but Batkin says a new long-tail version will be integrated with WordPress enabling both small and large publishers to make a market out of their most viewable advertising impressions.

The platform was a natural outgrowth of the data and technology that Duration Media created to enable the viewable inventory marketplace it launched with -- effectively, an ad network comprised of 450 big content publishers.

The method effectively inserts a new ad impression after the original ad completes its required 30 seconds served on a page. Importantly, those units are only served in inventory known to index as highly viewable, based on the ad industry's standard definition (50% or more of its pixels in view for two-seconds or longer for a video ad unit).

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Batkin says the method delivers inventory that is about 90% viewable based on the industry standard, and that marketplace and/or the VaaS service enable publishers to "mine" upwards of 40% incremental ad impressions.

More importantly, the approach helps both publishers and advertisers discriminate high-quality vs. low-quality viewable impressions that may not otherwise be detectable via DSPs (demand-side platforms) and exchanges that are bought programmatically.

The reason, he says, is that many publishers utilize secondary resellers of their inventory -- companies like Outbrain or Taboola -- whose impressions aren't in the same highly viewable locations as the ones sold directly by the publisher's sales organization or technology.

To illustrate this point, Batkin cites data compiled by programmatic ad-market analyst Jounce Media delineating how viewability differs based on who is selling the inventory, in-house or other "intermediaries" (see chart above).

While Duration Media's marketplace also is an intermediary, it's one based only on selling the most viewable ad impressions, and now it is offering its technology for publishers to use themselves.

"What Duration has done is that when a user has a high dwell time on a page, it basically runs another auction to serve a second ad unit to them," explains Jounce Founder Chris Kane, adding: "Eventually most good web publishers will do the same thing -- it’s just a question of whether they do it themselves or do it with partners like Duration [Media]."

Batkin says the WordPress integration will be available to small and mid-size publishers beginning next month.

1 comment about "Viewable Ad Net Expands Into Platform, Offers Publishing Industry Its Own 'VaaS' Model".
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  1. Tony Jarvis from Olympic Media Consultancy, January 31, 2021 at 12:50 p.m.

    Per the MRC Cross-Media Measurement Standards released September 2019:
    "However, in instances where digital and linear video ad audience measurement will be
    combined into deduplicated cross-media measurement, it is required that a viewability
    qualification threshold of 100% of pixels on screen for at least two continuous seconds is
    utilized for both digital and linear components."
    First:  So called "viewable impressions" are NOT an audience currency measurement as it has NO audience or eyes-on dimension!  In today's media environment, using anything less than 100% of pixels rendered to complete ad specifications as a pre-requisite for any ad in a commercial pod is not recommended. 
    Second:  Viewable impressions of any duration for any ad in a pod, are merely a pre-required 'proof of performance' to the acceptability (or otherwise) of the media currency metrics based on target audience and optimally on eyes-on.
    As has been repeated and confirmed by the media research cognoscenti worldwide in Media Post, with no eyes-on or ears-on the ad or content by the target group there can be no outcomes even when the viewbable impressions meet every standard and requirement.  Perhaps Duration Media should submit to an MRC accreditation?

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